Busy Weekend!

It's being a busy weekend this weekend.

Last night, I went to a colleague's home for a Halloween party. Dressed all in black, per the invitation's request. Wore a mask to ring the door bell. Drank some champagne. Chatted with a bunch of strangers. Ate some snacks. Played with their dogs. Came home. Crashed.

This morning, I got up, cleaned the kittens' room, and answered a few emails. Put some clothes in the washer. Went for a run/walk. Came home. Ate lunch. Took a quick shower. Drove to the Seven Corners PetSmart, where I worked with Lost Dog and Cat Rescue to try to get some cats and kittens adopted. Talked to a bunch of strangers about kittens and cats. Pet a bunch of kittens. Trimmed kitten nails. Only got one adopted. Left the event to drive to Georgetown to get my hair cut. Came home. Ate some dinner. Checked Facebook. Played Farmville. Put the clothes in the dryer. Watched some TV. Read a book. Sleep. Wait for the clocks to be turned back.

Tomorrow, I go to exercise. Eat lunch. Talk to my mother for our weekly chat. Drop by the Reston PetSmart to drop off kitten medicine I didn't use. Buy cat food and litter. Meet with my colleagues for a two-hour meeting. Go grocery shopping. Eat dinner. Play Farmville. Watch some TV. Read a book. Sleep.

Whew!

Giving Blood

I have a fairly rare blood type. I'm A-, which is apparently only found in 9% of the population. As a result, I get calls from the Red Cross asking me to donate.

The first time this happened, it freaked me out. We had had a blood drive at work, and I had donated. I had donated once in college so I knew that I could give blood without any issues. On this occasion, the Red Cross called me about a week after I had donated. They left me a message, and I thought there might be something wrong with my blood. I didn't think I had HIV or AIDS, but it was the late 80s, when the disease was breaking nationwide. And so I must admit that having a message from the Red Cross made me panic just a bit. But as it turned out, what they wanted from me was my blood. Since I have a fairly rare blood type.

Since then, I have been a pretty regular donor. I have given more than 42 times. I try to give as often as I can, but with work schedules being what they are, I can't always get there every 8 weeks.

But the local Red Cross center has had logistical issues the last few times that I have gone. And as a result, I haven't been going.

Here's the problem. Because I have given so much, I have a card that says I'm a preferred donor. Being a preferred donor should mean that I get through the donor process more smoothly. Perhaps not faster. But perhaps even faster. The preferred donors have their own set of cards for order of donation. In theory, we should get through the process more easily. Certainly, I have read all the materials and answered all the questions on many, many occasions.

But the preferred donor line doesn't actually move smoothly. It moves just as poorly as the regular line. The last time I went to donate, I was there for 10 minutes, with no one else giving their histories, and no one came to get mine. I asked the receptionist to find someone to take my history (test my blood, take my BP and pulse, have me answer the history questions, etc.), and she looked at me like I was insane for even asking the question. Another 10 minutes went by, with nurses watching the TV in front of wear I was sitting and appearing to not be doing anything else. Finally, I just gave up. I walked out. And I have not been back since.

Next week, I am scheduled to donate at iNova instead. Hopefully the process will go more smoothly. Hopefully it will be a way for me to start donating blood regularly again. Because I do believe in the process. I do believe in giving blood because not enough people do. But I can't stand inefficiency.

Fingers crossed.

Sore Muscles

I sometimes have wondered if doing Body Flow (Gold's Gym's yoga/pilates/tai chi program) is really serious exercise. Maybe serious isn't the right word. But as someone who usually runs or does an hour of cardio on the various cardio machines, an hour of Body Flow just didn't feel like as much work. Probably because I don't sweat nearly so much in Body Flow as I do when I go for a run or do the cardio machines.

But yesterday I went to Body Flow for the first time in 6 weeks. I have been running more lately, outside when the weather is nice. And I've had very busy weekends. And so I just haven't gotten to a Body Flow class in a while.

When I first started Body Flow, I had already been working out at least three times a week. I was in pretty good shape. I even dropped by the occasional Body Pump class (which uses weights to help with aerobic exercise). So I guess my muscles were already been strong. They weren't as flexible as they needed to be for Body Flow. That I definitely noticed. But I didn't really get sore from taking it.

But today, the day after the Body Flow class, I am sore! My abs are tight. My quads are aching; though some of that is from Saturday's run. My arms also ache.

Guess Body Flow does give me a good workout. And guess I'll be going more regularly!

One Down, Two To Go

Hotel Eberhard has one less guest. I dropped Corky, the boy kitten, off at the Reston PetSmart to live there until he's adopted. Which will hopefully be soon. He's a sweetheart of a kitten. Loves people. Despite having been tortured as a smaller kitten. He and his littermate were dipped in oil up to their necks. His littermate didn't survive.

The hotel still has two guests, however. Sisters Thelma and Louise. Two beautiful little tabbies. Louise has lots of white to go with her tabby. Thelma is all tabby. Louise is more of a player. Thelma is more passive. Louise and Corky used to play-fight a lot. I'll be curious to see what happens since he's no longer around. The girls are supposed to go to a vet in Sterling where hopefully they will be adopted. They should go out there early next week.

Time for room service.

The Social Secretary

I love my family. I love my friends. I enjoy spending time with them. But I am ultimately an introvert. I find it exhausting to be "on" all the time. When I do an adoption event, but the end of it, I am spent. Done. Finished. Ready to collapse.

I find a similar thing happens when I go on vacation with my family or friends. At some point each day, I need some time to myself. Maybe it's just when I'm going to bed. Maybe I'll go for a run. Maybe I'll go for a walk. Or offer to run to the store for something we might need. Just something to spend a little time alone.

Which is why I find it ironic that I am the family social secretary. I'm in charge of reminding people about major events in each other's lives - big birthdays, anniversaries, that kind of thing. When my father turned 70, I was the one who organized the dinner to celebrate. I was the one who got together his present - reminiscences from his siblings about their childhood. (To be fair, my sister did get tapped when my father turned 80, and we went to Hawaii.) When my mother turned the same age, I arranged for the family to send her 70 birthday cards. We all mailed our share (10 each) on the same day so that she ended up getting all 70 cards at approximately the same time. When it was my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, I organized a photography session for us "kids" and the grandchildren to get a formal portrait done - something we had never done before. This year, in honor of my parents' 60th anniversary next year and because it's been 10 years since the last one, my task - assigned by my mother because she knows I'm the family social secretary - is to get an updated family portrait taken. This time, we will include not only the new in-laws but also our parents. I also organize the family Pick-A-Name for Christmas presents every year. The first couple of years, we tried to find a time for everyone to actually pick a name out of a hat. But that has gotten too difficult since everyone is dispersed. So now I just do a random number generation and try to ensure that no one gets the same person two years in a row. Then I send an email to everyone with the list of who has who.

This social secretary thing has also extended to my friends. In the '90s, I took karate. There were 8-10 other women, approximately the same age, who took karate at the same time at the same school. It was great. We supported each other. We sparred with each other. We all got our black belts within a few months of each other. We became friends outside the dojo. In time, we each dropped away from karate for various reasons. Some got married and had children. Some lost interest after getting their first degree black belt. Some got busy with other life events. We kept in touch via email, but we didn't see each other much. Here and there. In pairs. Almost never as a group. Until one of the ladies died. Cherie passed away suddenly a couple of years ago. One of those random health events that she thought was minor and turned out to be fatal. In her honor and memory, the ladies of JSK got together for dinner. It was the first time we had seen each other - all at the same time - in years. And I was the one who suggested it. So I was the one who organized it. And now, I am in charge of keeping it going. Every few months I send an email to all the ladies and offer some possible dates to get together. Eventually some of us find some common time and have dinner. It's usually not everyone. But it keeps the relationships going.

Today I was social secretary for the ex-Northrop Grumman Health folks. Lunch for 7. One of us is still actually at Northrop Grumman, though he's no longer in the Health area. Three of us still work together though at my current company, Cognosante. The other three are at various other health IT companies in the area. A couple of us talked about getting together for drinks. A couple of us talked about getting together for lunch. A couple of us talked about getting together for dinner. And no one actually proposed date, time, and place. So I did. So I think now I'm going to be the social secretary for this crowd too?

I love my family. I love my friends. But I'm an introvert. And also - somehow - the social secretary.

Sleep - That Elusive Elixir Of Life

I know several people who operate on less than 7 hours of sleep. I am just not one of them.

My boss can fly back from the West Coast on a red eye, work in the office all day, go to an event in the evening, and be fine for all of it. Not me. I don't sleep on planes, so a red eye for me means maybe a nap of an hour or so somewhere along the line. But not real sleep. I've even tried taking Tylenol PM, which puts me to sleep at home most of the time. On a plane, not so much. But even if she does sleep on the plane, even if she's in business class, that's still less than 7 hours of sleep because the flight just isn't that long. And you can't just get on the plane and go to sleep. Nor can you sleep through landing. So best case, it's 5-1/2 hours of sleep. And I would be miserable.

Last night, the smoke alarm in my house decided that its batteries were dead. At midnight. So because I had already set my house alarm for the night, it started to beep at me. Scaring the bejesus out of me in the process. I wasn't asleep, but I was close. I had just turned out the light a few minutes earlier, having stayed up to watch the end of Top Chef and then read for a while before turning in. The alarm beeped. The cats jumped. Adrenaline kicked in.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Six beeps. That's the noise the alarm makes when it's unhappy. It's the same thing that happens if the power goes out.

If I were a good sleeper, perhaps I would sleep through those 6 beeps. Perhaps it wouldn't bother me that the alarm was unhappy. I would just acknowledge that there was an issue, roll over, and go back to sleep.

But that's not the way I operate. First, the beeping and the cats jumping made my adrenaline jump. Second, because I live alone, I am cautious about going downstairs late at night to investigate weird happenings. Was the alarm beeping because it was unhappy? Or was it because someone had jimmied a door or window and so hadn't quite triggered the alarm, but close? Did the beeping mean that the alarm wasn't working, i.e., wasn't protecting me? These are the thoughts that ran through my mind after I popped up in bed with the adrenaline running through my veins. Third, I am just not a good sleeper. Remember, I'm the person who can hear the cats run into the room on my carpeted floor when I'm asleep. Beeping all night. Not really going to work for me.

So I trundled downstairs and opened the face of the alarm box to try to decipher what was happening. Upon closing the face and hitting the System Status button, I heard the alarm voice say "Sensor 4 Smoke Failure". Does that mean there's smoke in my laundry room? Since I wasn't doing laundry, I couldn't imagine that would be true. However, that's the also the one ground floor window that isn't alarmed. I figure it would be a real challenge for anyone to get to that window since there's a huge rhododendron in the way - assuming anyone even saw the window behind the rhodie. But still, I get nervous about that room.

What to do? Go downstairs? After midnight. Somehow that always freaks me out, even though a half hour ago I was down there watching TV. It's not logical, but it's the way my brain works.

So I think "failure", perhaps the batteries need to be replaced. Luckily, being the anal retentive child that I am, I have the appropriate batteries in my freezer. I grab them, go into the laundry room, climb on top of the dryer to get to the smoke alarm, and start to disconnect it. When the phone rings. Adrenaline again! Just when it had sort of started to settle down. Yikes!

"Ma'am, sorry to call so late but we're getting an alarm signal from your house." Well, duh! Of course, it didn't help that I hadn't put in my code to turn the alarm off. Duh! He says they'll put that sensor in test mode so I can change the batteries without the alarm sounding. And then gives me a number to call if I have any questions.

I'm a pretty smart person. I am normally pretty good with mechanics and smoke detectors are pretty simple objects. I took it down, replaced the batteries, and then I could NOT get it back up. I lined up the hooks, twisted, and they just wouldn't hold. I'm standing on the dryer. I'm in my nightgown. It's 12:30 am. I'm tired. My eyes are tired. My head is cocked to the side because I'm taller than the ceiling is high when standing on the dryer. And I can't get the stupid thing back together. I want to cry. I want to yell. I want someone else to make it all better. But there's just me. So I try again. And again. And again. And yell at myself for not paying closer attention when I took it down. Is there a trick I've forgotten since the last time I replaced the batteries? Oh, the frustration!

Finally, it occurs to me that the new batteries are sticking up past the surface of the cover. Hmm....Could that be the problem? I turn the one battery sideways in the hole. Now the batteries are flat in their holes. I put the cover against the hooks. I twist. It holds. Eureka!

All is well, right? Not so much. I go upstairs. Test the System Status again. "Sensor 4 Smoke Failure." What? All that effort (okay, it shouldn't have been THAT hard) and it's still not working? I want to cry again.

I call ADT. Thank goodness the guy had given me the number so I didn't have to look it up. The CSR walks through the reset procedures with me. Still getting the alarm failure. We try a different procedure. Still getting the alarm failure. "Is there anything I can do to just set the window and door alarm, and not this alarm, and get some sleep?" "Sure, ma'am. Do this." So I do. And the alarm is set. And it doesn't beep 6 times at me.

It's now 1 am. Adrenaline is still racing through my veins. So I read for a little while again. 1:30 am, I turn off the lights again. Will I be able to sleep? I'm so tired. Yes, my body says. But only for 4 hours until the alarm - the clock one - goes off again.

Sleep. Elusive. Tired.

The Awkwardness Of Death

I went to a funeral today. Well, actually I guess it wasn't a funeral since it didn't include an interment. But it wasn't a memorial service either since there was a body in the room. So I guess funeral is the best word for it.

It was an awkward situation. For several reasons. First, apparently several of the children didn't know about each other until recently. I don't know all the details, but some of them had not really intended to be there but for their mother's final requests. As a consequence, there was a second awkwardness. A couple of the children - and these are people in the 40s and 50s - came to the service in clothes that are utterly inappropriate for a funeral. One was in a Hawaiian shirt. A couple of were in blue jeans. Another was in a Harley t-shirt. Strange behavior even if you didn't know you were going to be there a day before. Third, the only people at the funeral besides the family were five of us who know one of the children from hanging out at a local bar. Now, we've all known each other for a long time. And we know each other more than it might sound like from that initial description. But that is where we met. We met at a bar. Fourth, there was a dead body in the room. At least the coffin was closed. Fifth, the preacher did not know the deceased. Now, I didn't know her either - I know her daughter - but I didn't have to talk about her the way he did. How awkward it must be to be a preacher in that situation. To try to offer comfort to people you don't know for a family member you don't know. The only thing he knew was that she was a faithful person. And so he read scripture. Fine. And she had all the children that didn't know each other. And so he suggested that they take the opportunity to get to know each other. And to me that was awkward. That was reaching too far when he didn't really know what her wishes were. He knew that her wishes were that her children attend her funeral. But getting to know each other? He had no way of knowing that was her wish. Sixth, at least one of her children - the one that I know - is not religious. She in fact considers herself a pagan. In the best sense of that word. She believes in spirituality. In goodness. In the goddess. And so the preacher reading scripture and talking about the kingdom of heaven was awkward.

But I have a theory. I think funerals are often awkward. At that moment in time, people are uncomfortable. Their emotions are strained. People come together - some the family may know, and others that the family may not know - strangers trying to join together to honor the dead. It's awkward.

A New Era In Grocery Shopping

I remember years ago, George H.W. Bush was taken to a grocery store when he was president to see new scanner technology - something related to RFID I think. I guess he hadn't been to a grocery store in a while because he was shocked by the whole experience, something that the rest of us experienced frequently.

Today, I went to the local Giant for the first time in a while. I'm generally a Safeway shopper. Mostly because my local Safeway has a great baked goods section, and I'm a fan of fresh bagels and their chocolate chip cookies. But the Safeway hasn't been stocking the paper towels that I like in the amount that I like - you can't even buy a single roll; you have to buy an 8-pack, which is many too many rolls for me and I have no place to stock that many anyway. Since I didn't need cookies and I decided to get bread or English muffins for my breakfasts, I thought I would go to the Giant instead.

Another reason that I don't like Giant is that they have stupid self-checkout stations. First, you have to scan your Giant bonus card before you even start checking out. At Safeway, you can scan your bonus card at any time, and I usually do it at the end when I get out my debit card to pay. Since they are in the same wallet, that's the easiest thing to do. At the Giant self-checkout, you can't scan and bag at the same time. You have to scan everything and then bag. They have someone to help you bag, but that person has to handle several lanes and may or may not get to you in time. When the "bagging area" gets full, you have to go bag some groceries to make room for more to come down the lane.

Now, I guess there are two reasons for this. First, it probably helps with inventory control. It seems like it might be harder to put something in a bag that you haven't scanned. Maybe. And second, it encourages people who are buying a huge quantity of food NOT to use the self-checkout. I assume that Giant wants the self-checkout lanes to be used primarily by those with only a few items - even though there are no signs to indicate this above the lanes.

I don't buy all that many groceries. After all, it's just me. So most of the time, I fill two large bags that I bring from home. Which ironically are Giant bags. Even though I most often use them at Safeway. Anyway, I don't buy less than 15 items, but it's usually not more than 20 or 25. And still the bagging area fills up at least once before I'm done. It's annoying.

So Giant's self-checkout actually DIScourages me from using Giant.

But today was a new era. Today Giant impressed me.

I'm not sure if it's a new thing. I don't know if I'm being Papa Bush in saying this. But today I was impressed by the fact that Giant allows you to carry a scanner around the store. Scan the items as you put them in your cart in your bags that you brought with you or in bags that you pick up where you pick up the scanner. And then, and this is beauty of it, you can pay from your cart. You can then just pick up your groceries and go. Amazing.

Now I didn't actually try this cool new technology. I don't really understand how you pay from the scanner. I don't know how Giant controls for shoplifting with this system. I mean, couldn't you just put things in your bag without scanning them?

But what a cool idea! It means many less people going through the checkout lanes. Self-checkout or otherwise. And you know what? A lot of people were using the scanners.

Bravo, Giant! You can bet that I will be back to try the scanner system another day. It's a new era.

A Better Day

My father is out of the hospital. I talked to him earlier today, and he seems in good spirits but short of breath. That makes me nervous. On the other hand, he didn't get much rest in the hospital last night. And he did have surgery yesterday. So maybe I shouldn't be that concerned. But I'm going to go out to their home tomorrow. That will give me a good chance to evaluate the situation in person. I'm hopeful, but as I said, still nervous.

I had a good day otherwise. I found some wine glasses for my mother - in a style that we have used for a while but needed a few more of. I found a present for my buddy Kevin, whose birthday is at the end of the month. I bought a new cordless phone that has two extensions. The salesman told me that I could program the phone so that it doesn't use the built-in answering machine. Which was really quite easy to do. The extension phone worked immediately after it was plugged in - something that didn't happen with the phone I had previously. That extension phone did not work. Ever. I got a couple of silver rings, discounted because there hadn't been much business today. I picked up some eye moisturizer that should last me through the dryness of the winter. Finally, I got more kitten and cat food - so I'm stocked for the duration of kitten-dom. All in all, a good shopping excursion.

Weird Day

Today was a good news/bad news day.

Good news:
I picked up three new foster kittens. I'm only going to have them for a week or so. Basically, the ranch, where the cats and dogs live while they are waiting to be adopted, is having a bout of upper respiratory infection. So not a place we want to put healthy cats. While the infection is working its way out, I'll have the kittens. Probably for about a week. They are very cute, but pretty traumatized at this point after a long car ride to get to NoVA and then to my house. They'll probably be much perkier tomorrow.

Bad news:
My uncle Bill has been battling health issues for a while now. He had mouth cancer and had to have all his teeth removed. He hasn't been able to find dentures that really fit right, and so he's been eating pureed food for quite a while. Then he had to have a heart stint put in. Apparently he was having bladder issues and they couldn't diagnose them until after the heart stint was stable. But yesterday they found a carcinoma. Don't know the extent of the problem yet, but not a good situation on top of the other two.

Good news:
Tomorrow is the birthday of one of my bestest friends - Happy Birthday, Kevin!

Bad news:
My mom called tonight. My father has been feeling run down for a while and felt like his pulse was slower than it should be. This morning he went to the health center on the Asbury campus, and they sent him to the emergency room. Where he was admitted and they put in a pace maker. I don't know much about pace makers, and I think it's *relatively* not a big deal. But scary nonetheless. My father is 82, so his health is bound to have some issues though he's been remarkably healthy until now. But these last few months, things have been getting rougher health-wise. He had a mini-stroke in January. He had diverticulosis this summer. Now this. None of these are major events. But lots of little events are still darn scary.

Here's hoping that tomorrow all the news is good.

Too Many Phone Options

I have caller ID through my local phone company. I also have two old corded phones. And one cordless phone.

Until recently, the caller ID on the cordless phone was working just fine. And I almost never used it. The cordless phone is upstairs, and in the evening, I am almost always downstairs. When the phone rings, I don't actually run upstairs to look at the cordless phone before answering. In fact, much of the time, I don't answer the phone at all. If the phone hangs up in the middle of my answering machine message, then I know it was an automatic dialer and not a call I wanted to take. If someone leaves a message, I can usually hear it and know that I have a call that I may really need to return. It's been a pretty good system.

But the one aspect of the caller ID on the cordless phone that I did use quite a bit was the redial of a number in the caller ID directory. For example, my niece might call me. To call her back, all I would have to do is go through the caller ID list and pull up her number and dial it. Much easier than looking her number up. It only works for local calls, but many of the people who call me are local. So all in all, I found this a convenience.

But recently, my caller ID on my cordless phone stopped working. Unfortunately, neither of my corded phones have this function. I called the local phone company, and they checked their system. They said all looked fine from their end. Hmmm.....

The cordless phone also came with an answering machine. As with the caller ID, I have voice mail through my local phone company. I never use that service - it came with the calling plan - I just use the answering machine that came with the cordless phone. But I noticed the other day when I went to make a call, that the dial tone was three short beeps. Which meant I had a voice mail, not a message on my answering machine. As I said, however, I had never used this system. I hadn't even set up a password for it. But I had noticed it right before I called the local phone company about my caller ID issue, so I asked them about my voice mail service. They gave me the number to call to check voice mail and to set up a voice mail system with my voice on it. Which I did. I had four voice mails, including one that was over a year old. Very strange.

So after these two episodes, I thought why don't I get a newer cordless phone - one that has caller ID and no answering machine. That way, hopefully my caller ID problem might be solved, but at a minimum, I would be able to get rid of having an answering machine and a voice mailbox.

Did you know you can't buy a cordless phone without an answering machine? Every single style and manufacturer, even if they had multiple cordless extensions, had at least one with an answering machine.

Now I suppose it's possible that I could "disable" the answering machine on the cordless phone. I know other people who have cordless phones and phone company voice mail. There has to be a way to do this.

But it seems more complicated than it needs to be. And in the meantime, I still don't have functioning caller ID. And I have two methods to get messages. From all those auto-dialers.

Tchotchkes

Apparently, I have a lot of tchotchkes. Otherwise known as knickknacks. I collect vases, so I have quite a bit of those. I have both glass and ceramic ones. The display case in my living room has about 20 vases. The rest of my house has probably a dozen more.

I have a couple of other display areas. One is a collection of tchotchkes from my college days - a Lego castle, a pair of glass dolphins arcing over a piece of wood, a couple of Russian nesting dolls - all things that I either got from college beaus or from my sister on her travels during that time. So they have some sentimental value.

But to show my house, I need to seriously limit the number of tchotchkes on display. For the pictures of my home, there should be only minimal displays. That way, the house will look less cluttered and bigger.

The same thing goes for pictures on the walls. I asked my real estate professionals, and they said that it's good to have some bare walls. Rather than having something on each wall.

Same idea with closets. It's best to have the closets be somewhat empty. They look bigger that way.

Needless to say, I'm not going to throw all this stuff away. Instead, I will have to rent a storage space for a few months. Until I sell this house and buy another one.

So if you come to my house in the next couple of months, you'll see fewer tchotchkes. For now.

Busy Weekend

So this weekend I am very, very busy. I am painting my master bedroom. I am going to a concert a couple of hours away. I am having brunch with one of my girlfriends to celebrate my birthday. I also plan to work out each day of the weekend. I need to do the usual errands - dry cleaning, groceries, cat food, etc. And then I also want to take some clothes to be altered. And return some others that I bought online that don't really fit. And maybe buy some replacements for the ones I'm returning. Finally, I am planning to rent a storage space so I can start moving some of my things into it to stage my townhouse for sale in early 2010.

Whew! Could be a really, really fast weekend.

Birthday - Week Four

My record for birthday celebrations is six weeks. This year, I'm at four weeks.

Celebration #1 (9/20): My family's celebration, a joint celebration with my cousin Steve and his newborn son, whose birthdays were just before mine. This celebration of MY birthday was overshadowed by the celebration of the BIRTH of Quinton - and you know, that's exactly how it should be. What's year 47 compared to year 1?

Celebration #2 (9/26): My actual birthday, dinner with my good friend Kevin in New Hampshire. We saw a moose on the way to dinner. Freaked out Kevin, but made me happy! I've always wanted to see a moose in the wild.

Celebration #3 (10/2): Celebration with a bunch of my buds at a bar where we often hang out. Needless to say, I didn't pay for my glass of wine. :)

And the celebrations to come....

Celebration #4 (10/10): A concert with my other friend Kevin. We're going to see Nick Lowe (with opener Bill Kirchman) at the Avalon Theater in Easton, Maryland. Should be a fun night out to hear good music. Pretty much my favorite thing on earth.

Celebration #5 (10/11): Brunch with my good friend Cindy at our favorite place for brunch, Artie's, one of the Great American Restaurants. Possibly the best French toast ever. A brioche soaked in eggs and cinnamon. With scrambled eggs, bacon, and hash browns. Yum!

Four weeks and counting....

Is It Really That Bad?

I know the economy is bad. I understand that retailers are hurting. But I just saw a Christmas commercial for Sears. It's October! Please!

I noticed the other day that Hallmark has its annual Christmas ornament in stores, too. I've seen that in year's past and thought it was absurd to display Christmas before Halloween.

But it's one thing to have something in a store. But on TV?

At this rate, Christmas is going to be like elections - we'll all be sick of it before it gets here.

Bad Business

I'm always amazed when people make bad business decisions. Not that I'm the best business person in the whole world. But sometimes people just make decisions that seem so obvious to me to be wrong. And bad business at the same time.

For example, I know a guy who opened a new restaurant. It was built in the shell of another restaurant that had a reasonable amount of business, but had gone out of business nonetheless. So I guess the new owner thought that the area was known to have a restaurant, that people would come to the new restaurant if it shared enough of the good menu items from the previous restaurant, and he hired a bunch of the servers from the old restaurant who would bring back their regular customers.

Except that he didn't address some of the reasons that the other restaurant had closed. He didn't do much advertising, for example. He didn't point people to the new restaurant. It was in the same place, yes. But many of the stores that had led to the old restaurant weren't there anymore. The mall as a whole has been getting less business. Given this economy, that's not a surprise. And all the more reason to let people know about a new business. So yes, some of the regular came back. But not all of them. In the time between restaurants, they had found other places to go. They didn't automatically switch back. Maybe they found the other restaurant was ultimately more satisfying. Maybe they were just in a new pattern and too lazy to change again. And maybe they just didn't know that the new restaurant was there. If they didn't have another reason to go by the space, how would they have known? Bad business.

The restaurants in the area have all started offering a happy hour, when none of them did before. Seems like a good business decision. Bring in more happy hour traffic and make more money overall. But if you offer half price drinks, then you have to bring in double the business to make the same money. That's the simple math of it. And if you do it for most of the evening that the restaurant is open, then you will ultimately make less money. Bad business.

But this particular restaurateur didn't think about that. Instead, he's expecting to make the same sales he used to make. Even though the prices are lower when the business is greatest. And he's open fewer hours. Bad business.

Am I the only one who recognizes that this is bad business?